All Quiet on the Western Front

Well, I’ve pretty quiet on the blogging front I guess since VMworld. In case you don’t know I start a new role in May, 2018 and I’ve really been heads down on that trying to wrap my head around a whole series of new processes and procedures – and as ever learning by one’s mistakes. As ever in the life the lesson you learn the hard way are the ones that tend to stay.

So in May of last year I joined a company called sureskills.com. My relationship with SureSkills went back to the days when I was freelance VMware Certified Instructor (VCI) and I was pimping my training skills across Europe, whilst writing books in hotels rooms, and speaking at VMUG. SureSkills was a big customer of mine – and in the early days I’d be there at least 1-2 weeks every month. The role I have at SureSkills is one that gets me involved in course development with a primary focus on VMware Official Curriculum materials. My first two courses that I worked with colleagues on was “VMware Sales Professional” (VSP) course covering VMware’s EUC/Mobility story focused on WorkspaceONE, and the second was a “VMware Technical Sales Professional” (VTSP) on Network Virtualisation – with specific focus on NSX Data Center (both the “T” and “V” editions). That just came to close this week. It quite something to hear one’s “script” voiced-over by American VO artist!

My new project is more familiar ground. This is an instructor-led classroom based course initially focused on the “Academy Program” and its actually falling under VMware’s “Virtualize Africa” initiative. Expressed simply “Virtualize Africa” is kind “leave no-one behind” project that aims to extend the benefits of VMware technology to every part of the globe. The course I developing with the input of VMware staffers is focused on supporting business-critical apps (Microsoft, Oracle, SAP) as well as nodding toward the next-generation of application frameworks such as containers, kubernetes – as well as vSphere Integrated Containers and VMware PKS. It’s a really exciting project because much of this content has never to this day been available in a training course – and usually resided in best practise docs, VMworld Sessions and VROOM! Style blog posts. Although, the remit is focused on the Virtualize Africa project – much of this content should be of equal interests to other geos. Anyway, I hope to share my insights and learnings now that I’m getting back into the weeds of technical material.